Cultivation of immortality begins with an eighty-year-old eunuch.

Chapter 464 Things Have Changed! Princess Yuanping!

Chen Fan paused slightly, looked towards the familiar yet unfamiliar mountain gate, and remained silent for a moment.

Many old memories came to mind.

He recalled Princess Yuanping's haggard face when they parted outside the Imperial Stables, her aloof figure in front of the Taiji Hall, and the golden bowl that changed his life—a gift from Princess Yuanping.

This princess was one of the few people in Chen Fan's long eunuch career who had shown him kindness and whose fates became strangely intertwined with his.

Although she later joined the Changchun Sect, separating them as immortals and mortals, and they never met again, Chen Fan always remembered that karmic bond.

"Yes, it's the Changchun Sect." Chen Fan withdrew his gaze, his tone calm. "Passing by this place, I remembered an old friend. Since we're here, let's... go up and take a look."

Tianxiangzi didn't ask any more questions, she just nodded.

The two then concealed their presence, acting like ordinary visitors, and headed up the faintly discernible mountain path.

The higher you go, the more pronounced the sense of decay becomes. Many of the stone steps along the path are broken and overgrown with weeds, with occasional collapsed stone tablets and dilapidated pavilions.

Along the way, there were hardly any decent disciples patrolling. Occasionally, they would be seen, but they were in a hurry and had low cultivation levels. They were completely unlike the arrogant disciples of the Changchun Sect who were in the Great Yuan Imperial City back then.

Chen Fan sighed inwardly. It seemed that what Ling Huanzi, Eunuch Wei and others said was true. The internal strife and external troubles of the past few years had severely damaged the vitality of this once behemoth.

He did not disturb the lower-level disciples. His divine sense quietly spread out and soon locked onto the only relatively powerful aura deep within the sect.

He was in the early stages of the Nascent Soul realm, and exuded an aura of decay.

With Tianxiangzi by his side, he darted away in a few flashes, avoiding all the remaining warning formations, and went straight to a quiet cave in the back mountain.

The cave entrance was tightly closed, and a thick layer of leaves had accumulated outside.

Chen Fan did not force his way in, but simply stood before the door and calmly said, "An old friend is passing by and has come to pay a visit. Fellow Daoist, would you mind showing yourself for a chat?"

After a moment of silence within the cave, the stone door slowly opened, releasing a musty, stale stench. A gaunt, white-haired old man emerged shakily, his eyes sunken and his breathing unsteady. He was none other than the last remaining Nascent Soul ancestor of the Changchun Sect.

The old man's cloudy gaze swept over Chen Fan and Tian Xiangzi, lingering especially on Chen Fan, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

He couldn't see through Chen Fan's specific cultivation level, but he could feel the unfathomable pressure emanating from him, which was definitely not that of an ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator.

"You two... you look unfamiliar. May I ask what brings you to this ruined land of my Changchun Sect?" The old man's voice was hoarse, carrying a sense of wariness and an undisguised weariness.

"I have no urgent business, I was just passing through and remembered an old friend, so I came to inquire." Chen Fan's tone remained calm. "I wonder if your clan's Princess Yuanping is still alive?"

"Princess Yuanping...?" The old man paused, as if it took him a while to recall the name from the depths of his memory. Then, a complex and unfathomable expression appeared on his face!

There is reminiscence, regret, and a touch of numbness in it.

"Who...are you to her?"

"He's an old friend," Chen Fan said. "I received his help when I was in the capital of Dayuan in my early years."

"Da Yuan... Ah, Da Yuan." The old man murmured twice, then suddenly coughed, taking a while to calm down. His gaze towards Chen Fan held a different meaning. "So that's how it is. No wonder... no wonder your aura is so peculiar. Yuan Ping... she's gone."

Despite having a premonition, Chen Fan's calm eyes still flickered almost imperceptibly when he heard it with his own ears.

He didn't immediately ask any further questions, but simply watched the old man quietly.

The old man seemed lost in memories, his voice growing increasingly low: "That child... had exceptional talent, achieving Foundation Establishment perfection at a young age, and was the hope of the sect's new faction. Unfortunately, she was born into the Great Abyss royal family, and within the sect... she was always ostracized. Later, the conflict between the old and new factions intensified, and the Qingyun Sect seized the opportunity to launch an attack... That internal strife had far-reaching consequences. Yuanping... was strong-willed and unwilling to completely abandon her motherland, caught in the middle... and ultimately died in a chaotic battle, her remains... never recovered. It's been quite many years."

For a moment, there was silence in front of the cave, with only the rustling sound of the mountain wind blowing through the bare branches.

Tian Xiangzi subconsciously looked at Chen Fan, only to see him standing with his hands behind his back, gazing at the distant, layered mountains. His profile, illuminated by the thin sunlight filtering through the clouds, revealed little emotion.

But having followed him for so long, Tianxiangzi could sense that beneath that calm surface, there was a very faint, almost imperceptible ripple.

"So... he's already gone." Chen Fan repeated softly, his tone ambiguous, neither a question nor a sigh.

"The sect... has also fallen." The old man smiled bitterly, looking around at the desolate scene. "Internal strife never ends, external enemies invade, disciples are scattered, resources are depleted... Now only this old bone of mine is left, guarding this empty shell. The so-called eight major sects are long gone. The world changes, rises and falls, it's nothing more than this."

Chen Fan remained silent.

He remembered many things.

Recalling my eighty years as a eunuch, raising horses in the Imperial Stables, I thought the world was no bigger than the Imperial City!

I recall the resentment and bitterness I felt when Ling Huanzi said, "Eunuchs cannot cultivate immortality," which almost extinguished my hope!

Thinking back on my secret cultivation journey, stumbling and struggling, from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, then to Core Formation and Nascent Soul... along the way, I witnessed countless life and death events and experienced countless changes.

The power struggle between the Dayuan royal family and the Changchun sect, the chaotic war between eight sects and eight kingdoms, the rise and fall of old friends!

The princess who bestowed the golden bowl upon him and left with a sorrowful look in her eyes has long since vanished silently in this raging torrent.

The Changchun Sect, which he once considered unattainable and represented the "Immortal Sect," is now nothing but ruins and a frail, aging Nascent Soul cultivator.

"Heaven and earth are the furnace, creation is the craftsman, yin and yang are the charcoal, and all things are the copper." Chen Fan suddenly murmured a sentence, whether he was lamenting the Changchun Sect, Yuan Ping, or the impermanence of the world and the passing of time.

A eunuch, a crippled man, struggling to survive in this mortal world and on the vast path to immortality, seemingly an ant, yet he has gradually made it to where he is today.

Those once dazzling entities have turned to dust.

The feeling is hard to describe.

He turned his head and nodded slightly to the patriarch of the Changchun Sect: "Thank you for informing me. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

The old man quickly returned the greeting: "You flatter me. Please make yourself at home."

He could tell that the person before him was no ordinary person. To be able to come so calmly, ask so calmly, and accept the news of the passing of an old friend so calmly—this kind of temperament was unfathomable.

Chen Fan said no more and turned to walk down the mountain.

Tianxiangzi followed silently.

The two descended the mountain along the same path they had come from, their pace still unhurried, but the atmosphere was different from when they arrived, now more tranquil.

Chen Fan stopped after walking a long way out of the Changchun Sect's mountain gate area, and looked back one last time at the continuous mountain shadows shrouded in twilight.

The setting sun cast a dim golden glow on the dilapidated mountain gate, making it appear even more desolate.